Abstract
Decades of exclusion of Indian tribal populations from forests and refutation of their rights to forest resources instigated the implementation of the Forest Rights Act in 2006, which called for the transfer of forest ownership and management to forest peoples. This Act was also stated to have the capability to
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improve the condition of the degrading forests of India and ensure forest conservation. However, this devolution of forest governance has not been successfully accomplished throughout the subcontinent, as the Act is confronted by a number of challenges. In the state of Andhra Pradesh, challenges such as the obstruction to policy execution at the grassroots by local and regional power holders have made interventions from external actors indispensable for forest peoples gaining their legal rights forest resources. Additionally, external actors in the study region claim to have undertaken non-timber forest products (NTFP) management initiatives in tribal communities, which have the same goals as community-based forest management, i.e. forest conservation and poverty elimination.
When external actors are intricately involved with communities, there is a need to analyze their interventions to comprehend their contribution to achieving the dual goals of communally governed forests. Therefore, this research explored external actors and their interventions in isolation, by comparing two villages - one with and the other without external actor interventions. Furthermore, the influence of external actor involvement was ascertained by evaluating two aspects of NTFP management which were the utility of forest resources and the harvesting techniques executed for forest resources. Finally, it was determined whether the outcomes of NTFP management were coherent with the goals of communally governed forests, and the two aspects of NTFP management were used to explain the variations, if any, between outcomes and goals.
It was observed that the choice of species-specific intervention (whether motivated by contributing to forest health or community well-being) by the external actor influences the extent of coherence between outcomes and goals. Moreover, evidence suggested that the probability of achieving this synergy is improved by the local governance structure in place, as the sense of ownership amongst forest peoples seems to have contributed positively to achieving these goals. Nevertheless, it is necessary for external actors to invest in monitoring systems to ensure that NTFP resources are sustainably managed in the future. Furthermore, a lack of autonomous initiatives for NTFP management on behalf of the forest peoples questions whether sustainable management of forest resources will prolong if external actors withdraw from the community.
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